So Human as I Am
by AStudyInTeal
Summary: "Sherlock is numb as he stares down at grave before him. He doesn't know what he feels, staring down at the headstone marked John Watson." - After John dies, Sherlock is left reeling in the aftermath.


**Title: So Human as I Am**

**Author: AStudyInTeal**

**Summary: ["**_**Sherlock is numb as he stares down at grave before him. He doesn't know what he feels, staring down at the grave marked John Watson.**_**.] ****After John dies from cancer, Sherlock is left reeling in the aftermath.**  


******Warnings: Major Character Death, (Brief) Graphic Depictions of Violence, and Serious Angst  
**

* * *

**So Human as I Am  
**

"_**I tried to live alone but lonely is so lonely, alone  
So human as I am, I had to give up my defenses  
So I smiled and tried to mean it, to let myself let go  
'Cause it's all in the hands of a bitter, bitter man  
Say goodbye to the world you thought you lived in  
Take a bow, play the part of a lonely, lonely heart  
Say goodbye to the world you thought you lived in  
To the world you thought you lived in…"**_

~ "**Any Other World", MIKA**

* * *

Sherlock is numb as he stares down at grave before him, as a coffin is lowered into it, as slightly-damp soil trickles through his fingers.

He doesn't know what he feels, staring down at the grave marked _John Watson._

* * *

"_How long?"_

"_Two months. Maybe less. The last few weeks…won't be pleasant. In the hospital mostly, on morphine and unconscious for a majority of the time._"

* * *

The detective almost doesn't attend the funeral. Despite the low regard he had for funerals, he couldn't bring himself not to go.

It is Harry who gives the eulogy. She's his sister, after all. She talks about John's bravery and loyalty, his compassion and determination.

Sherlock listens and hates every moment of it.

She may be his sister, but she never understood John. She doesn't know his love for danger, for adrenaline. His ordinary brilliance. His love for tea and that it became his habit to make two cups rather than only one. His preference for jumpers because they were comfortable and functional, could hide a gun, could withstand the rigorous use he put them through. His continuous stream of girlfriends, most lasting no more than a month, only a handful making even six. His constant need to help people and the pained look his face gets when they failed to help a client or save a life. His forgiving Sherlock after he'd faked his death five years ago. His extraordinary tolerance for experiments in the fridge, for violin recitals at two in the morning, for running across London after criminals, for Sherlock in general.

These are the things the detective thinks of while Harriet Watson spoke.

Despite all this, Sherlock seemed to be considered the chief mourner, the widower, the bereft man. Throughout the service, it is to him that other attendees cast pitying, apologetic looks. It was to him that sympathies were given.

The funeral itself is well attended. Harry is all that was left of the Watson clan, but John had knit together a family of his own through his friends and acquaintances. Mycroft is at Sherlock's right, as if he wanted to be certain his younger brother was not going to throw himself into the grave in some fit of misery. Mrs Hudson isn't far off, sniffling into a handkerchief. Lestrade was nearby too, grieving but solemn. It looks as if all the women John had dated—all their names deleted from his mind—are all in attendance. Several people Sherlock deduces to be from Bart's, old friends of John's from medical school, linger near the back. To their left is a smaller group that seemed to be his former fellows-at-arms, before John had moved from the Afghani battlefield to the London battlefield. More than half of Scotland Yard seems to be present as well, in respect for the doctor who had reined in their eccentric consultant. Several other officers from a variety of organizations and offices are scattered throughout.

Sherlock ignores their tears and pitying looks, their speeches and words, their sympathies and well-wishes. It's all irrelevant and immaterial.

The only thing that matters to him is John, being lowered into the ground.

* * *

"_What's the prognosis, John?"_

_A cheerless if wry smile. "What, no deductions?"_

"_John."_

_A sigh. "It's terminal, Sherlock."_

_A pause, unsure of what to say. "How…how long?"_

"_Not very."_

* * *

He doesn't know what to do once John tells him. He doesn't know what to say.

He can't find any words of apology or sympathy to say. Those don't matter because John wouldn't want them anyways. Words of comfort elude him.

'I'm sorry' is pointless.

'It'll be okay' is a lie. Because _no_. No, it bloody well wouldn't be alright in any possible way. What possible future without his flatmate, his Boswell, his friend could ever be an alright future?

What can he say?

What does one say when their best friend informs them that they have only two months to live?

* * *

At John's insistence, they continue normal life as long as it was feasible.

They take three cases in as many weeks before Sherlock declares he isn't accepting any more. John sighs and merely updates his blog with his accounts of the three. He had quit his job at the clinic immediately after the news.

To John, it seems like Sherlock hasn't slept at all recently. The detective has been sure to wake before John and only allowed himself to slip into sleep once his flatmate was unconscious.

Sherlock isn't going to allow himself to waste any time left with his best friend.

* * *

Once, Sherlock took various drugs in an attempt to block out the overload of input his mind provided him with, constantly barraging his mind with knowledge he did not always want.

He had sought out oblivion.

He just wanted to feel nothing at all.

He found that numbness years later after he lost John.

* * *

_"I'll miss you, John."_

_John smiles tightly at the eccentric man he's come to befriend. "I know, Sherlock. And that is the biggest regret I'll have. Leaving you."_

* * *

Mycroft visited Baker Street a week after the diagnosis, grim-faced.

He gave Sherlock and John a few forms each.

"Power of attorney agreement?" Sherlock asked, reading the papers.

The elder Holmes nodded. "John requested I make sure they were air-tight, just in case anything happens." He turned his omniscient gaze to the doctor. "Don't concern yourself with any medical or funerary expenses."

John didn't bother argue with the man. "Thanks, Mycroft. I owe you."

"No. I am merely settling an old debt."

* * *

In the end, the doctors do what they can, but they can't do much. Sherlock argues with them until they allow John to return home, where he can be more comfortable.

The detective is all but attached to John's side.

"Sherlock, it's okay to leave the room without me," the blogger chuckles. "I'm not going to expire on the couch while you get tea."

Grey eyes turn to him, awash with the emotions Sherlock is holding in, not allowing himself to give in to them. "I don't want you to die alone."

John holds his gaze for a long moment, choked on the words he can't say. Sherlock can read his face clearly anyways.

Silence says more than words ever could.

* * *

The end happens almost two months precisely after John's diagnosis.

Sherlock is at his bedside that night, for the twelfth night in a row, sleepless for his vigil.

Since the former army doctor had been put on morphine, his sleeping habits had been altered. Part of it, the detective assumes, is the illness itself.

"Sherlock?" John slurs suddenly in the middle of the night.

The detective grasps his searching hand. "I'm still here, John."

John squeezes his hand as tightly as he can, though his grip is weak. Perhaps, Sherlock thinks, it isn't him that John is reassuring was still here.

Despite himself, he can find no words of reassurance or comfort to give his friend. Because things will not get better, this will not be okay, and John won't be fine. There is nothing he can say.

He wants reassurance himself. He wants to shake John until he promises not to leave. He does not want to be here. He wants to leave. He does not want to sit here, unable to do anything to help his best friend as he laid dying.

There is a pain in his heart, throbbing with its steady beating. It feels like it is being ripped from his chest. Like it is being burned out of him.

He is losing his best friend. In all his life, this is the worst thing he has ever experienced.

Sherlock holds John's hand in both of his. "I'm here," he repeats."I'm here."

As the doctor slips back to sleep, Sherlock stares at and studies his face, memorizing it for the permanent folder in his mind labeled: "_JOHN WATSON – DO NOT DELETE_".

An hour later, when his chest stills and the hand in both of Sherlock's goes limp, only then did tears finally fall down Sherlock's face as sobs wrack his body.

_It's over. It's all over now._

_It doesn't matter_.

* * *

_John Hamish Watson_

_Doctor, Soldier, Blogger, Friend_

* * *

If anyone at the funeral finds it odd that John is buried next an empty grave, no one says a word of it.

* * *

_To: DI Lestrade  
It might do my brother good to have a case. _

_From: DI Lestrade  
I thought it'd be best to wait, to let him mourn._

_To: DI Lestrade  
He is still mourning, yes, but when won't he be?_

* * *

It is four months after the good doctor's passing that Sherlock finally returns to work.

He had spent the time since the funeral ghosting in the flat, haunting it like a ghost, surviving off tea and nicotine patches and the occasional biscuits that Mrs Hudson brought.

The detective still feels numb as he crosses the police cordon and approaches Lestrade, who had called him to the crime scene. Donovan is beside him, glancing away from Sherlock uneasily. No one seems to be able to meet his eyes except Lestrade, whom he addresses.

"What have you got?" he asks stoically without introduction.

While giving him the briefing, Lestrade studies the detective. Sherlock is thinner and paler than his drug days. He wonders if he'd even left 221B since the funeral.

Donovan follows when he leads Sherlock to the master bedroom, where the bodies were found. Sherlock studied them and, for a moment, almost seemed normal again until he straightened.

He looks to his left, mouth open—but falters as the "Jo—" leaves his mouth. He coughs, wilting slightly, and for a moment he looks lost like a child.

Lestrade realizes, looking at Sherlock after the man finished reciting his deductions, that the man is still in shock from John's death. His heart aches at the thought that the detective needs a blanket for shock now.

* * *

_"I never thought it'd end like this," John said quietly, late one night._

_Sherlock frowned. "With cancer?"_

_"With me leaving you."_

* * *

In the days after John's death, Sherlock lives with Mycroft, unable to bear being at Baker Street for the moment.

_He's in shock_, Mycroft supposes. Sherlock would never stay with him otherwise.

DI Lestrade visits the day after. Mycroft overhears part of their hushed conversation.

"Is this how he felt?" Sherlock's voice is small in a way Mycroft hasn't heard in decades.

The older man pauses, confused. "What?"

"Is this how he felt when he thought I was dead?" Sherlock asks.

Neither Mycroft nor Lestrade can think of a response.

* * *

"_If you don't stop prying…I burn you," Moriarty promised beside a pool. "I will burn the _heart_ out of you."_

_Sherlock was unfazed. "I have been reliably informed that I don't have one."_

_The criminal looked to John with a grin. "But we both know that's not true."_

* * *

It's months later than Sherlock realizes that he doesn't feel numb.

He feels empty. He feels like someone has carved into his chest and scooped out everything in there, taken away his heart—despite that the metaphor is nonsensical.

A cancerous growth had done what Moriarty and his vast criminal empire could not.

* * *

"I always thought we'd be doing this til we either got killed on a case or were old and grey and could retire. Have bees in Sussex like you've mentioned."

Sherlock floundered, having no words. He'd hoped for years now that his little hope might be possible, that John would stay with him for that long.

"'M sorry," the blogger added softly.

"John, I…I don't know what I will do after…after."

He laughed slightly. "Take cases, I assume."

The detective did not share his chuckle. "It won't be the same."

"Same as it was before we met."

Sherlock shook his head. "Nothing will ever be the same."

* * *

Ten months after John's death, Lestrade gets a call from Sherlock.

The detective had been after a murderer who'd done a runner and, as the DI realizes too late, had gone after the criminal himself.

After five minutes of flying through London's traffic to the intersection Sherlock had barely managed to enunciate, Lestrade finds the man in an alley off to the side, on the pavement.

A few feet away is the murderer, apparently unconscious and looking beat up and bloody. A gun lay near his hand. Most pressing about the scene, however, is the crumpled consulting detective on the pavement, coat fanned out around him, blood covering his shirt.

"Sherlock!" Lestrade yells as he went to the man's side. Sherlock is barely conscious, but began speaking. He only catches John's name in the slur of words.

After fumbling to call for an ambulance while pressing on the gunshot wound, Lestrade realizes what the detective was saying.

* * *

"_The game is on, John..."_

* * *

It's less than a year after John's funeral that Mycroft finds himself attending another.

This one is his brother's.

Despite his initial doubts, the funeral is just as well attended as John's. Mrs. Hudson, DI Lestrade, what is surely more than half of the Metropolitan Police, innumerable clients, members of his homeless network, and others Mycroft does not recognize.

Though he grieves for his brother, Mycroft's eyes are dry. Sherlock is dead, but at least he's no longer a half-dead wraith haunting an empty home.

There is finally a body beneath the obsidian black gravestone that merely reads _Sherlock Holmes_. Beside it is a white marble stone that bears John's name.

Mycroft lingers at the gravesite until he is the last.

Despite himself and his policy against sentiment, the government official smiles at the pair of graves as memories blind him momentarily.

Of a lost and wounded soldier without a cause. Of an uncontrollable detective that stopped for no one. Of the two broken men meeting and becoming whole together. Of watching the pair of them walk away from the crime scene that first night…

The words come with a nostalgic smile.

* * *

"_Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson."_

* * *

The last time the detective had visited John's grave before he was buried beside it was a week before he received his final case.

The cemetery was deserted.

Had someone been present, they might have seen the broken detective slump to his knees on the ground before the grave. The slump of his shoulders spoke of defeat.

He took in a shuddering breath, staring at the tombstone.

"I can't do this, John. I...I can't," Sherlock admitted.

"I'm lost without my blogger."


End file.
